Lately

Team Shad, by dint of the planet's spin and the arbitrary changing of the time, has essentially arrived at the off season. Darkness comes earlier and earlier each day now. Biting air. Hard sunshine. Falling leaves. Wind. 

Rides are catch as catch can.

Still, catch them we must. Team Shad is already on the books for the Rasputitsa (April) and the D2R2 (August) of 2017, so going into complete dormancy for any extended period of time is unacceptable. Besides, neither Dubstoevsky nor Wing Nut could handle that. They get surly and distant when deprived of the bicycle for too many days.

Zooming along the reservoir
November 1, 2016

The November landscape devolves into leaf-whipped barrenness, Bruegelian imaginations, trees, farms with gray, crumbling out buildings. Strange creatures pass gas, card-dealing crabs snap their claws at the ace of spades, whole sheep herds shift fearfully like twitchy coral reef minnow schools, a big fire maw opens wide to suck it all in. Fucknatty!

It's election day in America. Forgive the hallucinations.

Catch as catch can indeed. Like today's spirited dash of 17 miles that took in Bancroft Tower, Chester Rd hill climb, South Rd climb, the Reservoir dash, and a hard-driving return through Woo 'hood. 

Bancroft Tower on election day
November 8, 2016

Holden Reservoir nearing sunset
November 8, 2016